Palazzolo enters Springfield mayor’s race

Exactly a year before next April’s mayoral general election, Sangamon County Auditor Paul Palazzolo announced Monday that he is running for the city’s top job.

Joined by more than 80 family members, friends and supporters at Lincoln Park, Palazzolo said he has the experience, effectiveness and trustworthiness to do the job.

“This is not about me,” Palazzolo said. “It’s about what I believe I can bring to this role and my ability to serve well.”

Palazzolo, 47, is a former trustee of the Springfield Park Board who has been county auditor since December 2002. He said he’s saved money by engineering the county’s voluntary severance plan and creating a workplace safety board designed to avoid employee injuries. He also said he’s advanced transparency by posting audits and the county’s checkbook online.

Palazzolo becomes the first candidate to formally announce in the 2015 mayor’s race. City Treasurer Jim Langfelder has said he’s running as well, and Ward 6 Ald. Cory Jobe has an exploratory committee helping him determine if he will run.

Springfield Mayor Mike Houston said in the 2011 campaign that he planned to serve one four-year term, but has since said he may seek re-election next year. Sheila Stocks-Smith, a 2011 candidate, is also considered a possible contender in 2015. The nonpartisan primary is Feb. 24, and the general election is April 7.

But Palazzolo, who was in high school when Houston had his first two-term run as mayor, also said he would run even if Houston seeks another term.

“Every person who serves as mayor brings a new chapter to the city … that brings unique talents and skills,” Palazzolo said. He said he wants to stress the city’s strengths to help it grow.

Palazzolo, who characterized himself as a “fiscally responsible Republican,” also said he will be seeking endorsements for the officially non-partisan office. In the 2011 contest, Palazzolo ran briefly but kept his word and dropped out of the race when he was not endorsed by the Sangamon County GOP. He told reporters he would not again make such a promise to leave the race if not endorsed.

“I’m not in the pledge business anymore,” he said with a laugh.

Palazzolo said he’s had enthusiasm to try to make things better since he was a student at St. Aloysius grade school on Springfield’s north end. His involvement with Key Club at Griffin High was a beginning of a long affiliation with Kiwanis International, including being Key Club adviser at Sacred Heart-Griffin for 25 years and serving a stint as president of Kiwanis worldwide for a one-year term in 2009-10.

He was on the Springfield Park Board from 2001 to 2005, and was treasurer of the Springfield Airport Authority from 2000 to 2005. He’s also served in leadership capacities at The Salvation Army, Hoogland Center for the Arts and Senior Services Center.

“For many politicians, their elected public service leads to their community involvement,” Palazzolo said. “For me, my community involvement led to my public service.”

After getting a finance degree from the University of Illinois, Palazzolo said, he got an internship with the secretary of state’s office under Jim Edgar. There, he said, he “learned about fiscal responsibility in government and collaborative leadership.”

He said he’s tried to use those lessons at his elected posts.

“I come from the level of government service that works, and there are lessons and ideas that we’ve used successfully in county government that can be applied to the city of Springfield,” he said.

Palazzolo noted that Springfield has not grown as fast, in population, as Bloomington-Normal or Champaign in the past 20 years. He said he wants to build “momentum” for the city by playing to strengths including the medical community and higher-education offerings.

“My experience would allow me to be uniquely qualified to be the city’s salesperson-in-chief that can dynamically help bring Springfield to the eyes of those who never would have considered us a destination before,” he said.

Palazzolo told reporters a half-percent sales tax increase that went into effect Jan. 1 to fund a 15-year, $86.6 million bond issue to pay for a three-year improvement program for streets, sidewalks and drainage projects was “valid to get us where we need to be on infrastructure.”

Half of the increase is supposed to sunset after the bonds are paid off. Palazzolo said he would want to make sure that promise is kept, and he said if possible, the full half-percent should come off. The base sales tax in the city was raised from 8 percent to 8.5 percent with the change Jan. 1.

Asked about the decades-long planning to build the proposed Hunter Lake as a second city water source, Palazzolo noted that the city is still seeking approvals for that project.

“We should continue to pursue alternatives in case that doesn’t work out,” Palazzolo said, but given that “we’ve invested so much” in the lake project, he believes “if we can get it done, that would be the way to go.”

Palazzolo and his wife, Suanne Staab-Palazzolo, a funeral director with her family’s Staab Funeral Home in Springfield, have two children — Maria, 17, and Anthony, 12.